Science

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Simple attraction: Researchers control protein release from nanoparticles without encapsulation: U of T Engineering discovery stands to improve reliability and fabrication process for treatments to conditions such as spinal cord damage and stroke

A U of T Engineering team has designed a simpler way to keep therapeutic proteins where they are needed for long periods of time. The discovery is a potential game-changer for the treatment of chronic illnesses or injuries that often require multiple injections or daily pills.

For decades, biomedical engineers have been painstakingly encapsulating proteins in nanoparticles to control their release. Now, a research team led by University Professor Molly Shoichet has shown that proteins can be released over several weeks, even months, without ever being encapsulated. In this case the team looked specifically at therapeutic proteins relevant to tissue regeneration after stroke and spinal cord injury.

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NASA's Juno Spacecraft Crosses Jupiter/Sun Gravitational Boundary

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This artist's rendering shows NASA's Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter.

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Scientists illuminate a hidden regulator in gene transcription: New super-resolution technique visualizes important role of short-lived enzyme clusters

Gene transcription is the process by which DNA is copied and synthesized as messenger RNA (mRNA) — which delivers its genetic blueprints to the cell’s protein-making machinery.

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By merging two super-resolved images of a single gene (magneta) and Pol II enzymes (green), scientists could see clusters of enzymes, as well as mRNA (white), forming on the same active gene, in live cells.

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Rosetta’s comet contains ingredients for life

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Rosetta’s comet contains ingredients for life

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NASA Telescopes Find Clues for How Giant Black Holes Formed So Quickly

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More light on cancer: Scientists created nanoparticles to highlight cancer cells

The group of Russian and French researchers, with the participation of scientists from the Lomonosov Moscow State University, has succeeded to synthesize nanoparticles of ultrapure silicon, which exhibited the property of efficient photoluminescence, i.e., secondary light emission after photoexcitation. These particles were able to easily penetrate into cancer cells and it allowed to use them as luminescent markers in the early diagnosis of cancer and in treatments of this disease. The article was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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These are confocal fluorescence microscopy images of CF2Th cancer cells incubated with LA-Si NPs.

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Hubble Takes Mars Portrait Near Close Approach

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How light is detected affects the atom that emits it: An experiment suggests it might be possible to control atoms entangled with the light they emit by manipulating detection

Flick a switch on a dark winter day and your office is flooded with bright light, one of many everyday miracles to which we are all usually oblivious.

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In spontaneous emission, wave detection gives you more information than particle detection.

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From ‘Magnetoshells’ to Growable Habitats, NASA Invests in Next Stage of Visionary Technology Development

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Physicists measure van der Waals forces of individual atoms for the first time

Physicists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the University of Basel have succeeded in measuring the very weak van der Waals forces between individual atoms for the first time. To do this, they fixed individual noble gas atoms within a molecular network and determined the interactions with a single xenon atom that they had positioned at the tip of an atomic force microscope. As expected, the forces varied according to the distance between the two atoms; but, in some cases, the forces were several times larger than theoretically calculated. These findings are reported by the international team of researchers in Nature Communications.

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e gas atoms deposited on molecular network are investigated with a probing tip, which is decorated with a xenon atom. The measurements give information about the weak van der Waals forces between these individual atoms.

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